On Ivar’s ship, the Lindormr; the minster-slaves crouched round their machine. At the first noise of onset they had whipped the covers off it, wound and loaded. Now they hesitated, uncertain in which direction to shoot. Ivar stepped across and on to the gunwale.
“Boom off,” he ordered. “Leave that. Push out from shore.”
“Are you deserting your men already?” asked Dolgfinn, standing with a clutch of senior skippers a few feet away. “Without so much as a blow struck? That may sound bad when the story is told.”
“Not deserting. Getting ready to fight. Come aboard if that’s what you mean to do. If you mean to stand round like old whores waiting for trade, stay where you are.”
Dolgfinn flushed at the insult, stepped forward with his hand on hilt. Feathers sprouted suddenly from his temple, and he fell. With the camp taken, the crossbowmen had fanned out again, shooting wherever they saw resistance. Ivar stepped behind the protecting bulk of the machine mounted on the prow of the ship. As the slaves clumsily poled the Lindormr out into the slow current, he pointed quickly to one man still on the bank.
“You. Jump. Over here.”
Reluctantly Erkenbert the archdeacon gathered up his black robe, leapt the widening gap of water, landed staggering in Ivar’s arms.
Ivar jerked a thumb at the crossbowmen growing ever more visible in the dawning light. “More machines you did not tell me of. I suppose you will tell me they cannot exist either. If I live past today I will cut your heart out and burn your minster to the ground.”
To the slaves he shouted, “Stop pushing. Drop anchor. Drop the gangplank.”
As the mystified slaves heaved the weighted, two-foot-wide plank from gunwale to shore, Ivar placed the stout protective beam of his machine behind him, took a firm grip on Erkenbert’s right wrist, and leaned back to watch his army die. Unafraid, he had only one thought left: how to spoil his enemies’ triumph, how to sour victory into failure.
Firmly escorted, Shef walked forward through the chaos of the camp. His helmet was strapped on, his halberd was over his shoulder. He had not yet struck a blow or dodged one. Ivar’s army was no more. The Waymen were rounding up prisoners while a few survivors ran toward the river, running in twos and threes both ways along the bank to get away. There were not many of them, surely not enough to be a threat.
The battle was won, Shef told himself, and won easily, exactly according to plan. Yet something still chilled in his belly: too easy, he felt, too easy. The gods demand a price for favors. What was it to be? He began to run in earnest, heading for the helmet of Brand, now at the very tip of the Waymen’s advance toward the river and the ships. As he did so, a flash of color came from the mast of one of the ships only a few yards ahead, gold catching the first direct rays of the rising sun. It was the Coiling Worm. Ivar had broken out his banner.
Brand slowed to a walk as he saw Ivar standing, one foot on the gunwale of the Lindormr, with six feet of water between the ship and the bank. Ivar was fully dressed, wearing his grass-green breeches and tunic, his mail-coat and silver helmet. He had thrown his scarlet cloak aside, but the polished boss of his shield caught the red light of morning. By his side stood a small man in the black robe of a Christian cleric, a look of horror on his face.
As men on both sides saw the confrontation, fighting finally stopped. The Vikings on both sides, Waymen and Ragnarssons, looked at each other, nodded, accepted that the battle was won and lost. As the English halberdiers, less businesslike in their attitudes, closed in, those Ragnarsson troops still resisting began hastily to throw their weapons down, put themselves under the protection of their former enemies. Then all, English and Norse, Waymen and pirates, faced inward, to see how their leaders would behave. At the rear of the watching ring, Shef struggled and cursed to get through.